How Tucker Carlson went from a CIA reject to the most-watched person on cable news — to now out of a job
Tucker Carlson and Fox News parted ways on Monday.
Carlson was the network's most popular host, but his time there was marked with controversy.
Most recently, the network paid a $787.5 million settlement in a suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
Tucker Carlson was the most-watched man on cable — and now he is no more.
In a statement on Monday, Fox News announced that it was parting ways with its most popular anchor, making the end of 14 years at the network.
His tenure was marked with controversy: Most recently he found himself at the center of a lawsuit between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, which ended up costing the network a $787.5 million settlement.
Texts from Carlson disclosed in the suit reveal Carlson's discontent with certain hosts at the network. They also showed he was skeptical about the election-fraud claims he peddled. These messages may have been a part of his downfall, The Washington Post reported, citing what it said was a person familiar with the company's thinking.
He's also named in a discrimination suit filed last month by a former producer. The suit claims Carlson presided over a culture of misogyny and antisemitism. Fox disputes the claims in the suit.
Over the years, Carlson has made contentious comments about women, immigrants, and Black people that have landed him in hot water and prompted more than a dozen companies to pull their advertisements from his show.
Here's how Carlson went from being rejected from the CIA and publicly taken down by Jon Stewart, to drawing massive audiences, and, eventually, being dropped by the network that made him famous.
Tucker Carlson was born in May 1969 in San Francisco, California into a wealthy family. His father, Richard Warner Carlson, had forged an eventful career in journalism and later politics, and his mother, Lisa McNear, was an artist.
When he was six years old, Carlson's parents split up and his mother left the family to pursue a "bohemian" lifestyle in France, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Until her death in 2011, Carlson and his little brother, Buckley, had little contact with her.
Speaking of his mother, Carlson once said: "Totally bizarre situation — which I never talk about, because it was actually not really part of my life at all," The New Yorker reported.
Source: The New Yorker
At the age of 14, Carlson was sent to a prestigious boarding school in Rhode Island, where he was known for his "beach boy looks" and his ability to dominate the room at the after-dinner debating society.
From the beginning, Carlson's classmates viewed him as "a self-assured conservative who wasn't afraid to speak his mind," The New Yorker reported.
Source: The New Yorker
During his time at boarding school, Carlson also met his future wife Susie Andrews, who was the daughter of the then-headmaster, Reverend George Andrews.
The couple got married in 1991 in the chapel at their old high school. They have four children, according to The New York Times.
Carlson and his family are members of The Episcopal Church. During the 2004 Republican National Convention, Carlson said he was "utterly opposed to abortion" and thinks its "horrible" and "cruel" — a stance he still holds today, The Washington Post reported.
Source: The New Yorker
It was in 10th grade of boarding school that Carlson also started sporting his signature look: the bow tie.
The bow tie became Carlson's signature look during his first television job.
When he hosted the nightly program "Tucker" on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008, the television network advertised his program with posters that read, "The Man. The Legend. The Bow Tie," The New Yorker reported.
Carlson officially got rid of the bow tie in 2006, saying "I like bow ties, and I certainly spent a lot of time defending them. But, from now on, I'm going without."
Source: The New Yorker
After graduating from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1991, Carlson applied to work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but was rejected. It was then that he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and pursue a career in journalism.
Tucker reportedly only got accepted into Trinity College with the help of his wife after failing to impress any prestigious universities, according to NowThis News.
Source: NowThis News
After working several jobs for weekly newspapers and magazines, Carlson decided to make the jump to television in 2000. He landed his first memorable roles on the CNN shows "The Spin Room" and "Crossfire."
"I had financial demands," Carlson told The New Yorker in 2017 when he was asked why he made the switch to television. "When you're reproducing at that rate, it's kind of unsustainable."
Source: Columbia Journalism Review
Carlson's time on CNN's was marked mainly by a 2004 incident on "Crossfire," when then-"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart called him a "dick" and said his program "was hurting America."
Stewart told Carlson that he thought the debate show — that had liberal and conservative pundits challenge each other on political issues — was biased and harmful.
"It's hurting America. Here is what I wanted to tell you guys: Stop. You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably," Stewart said, according to CNN.
The exchange went viral and shortly after, in January 2005, CNN canceled the show and announced they wouldn't renew Carlson's contract.
Carlson later said that he had resigned before the announcement.
"I resigned from 'Crossfire' in April, many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn't like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation…each side coming out, you know, 'Here's my argument,' and no one listening to anyone else. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work."
Source: CNN
In 2006, Carlson participated in Season 3 of "Dancing with the Stars" but was eliminated in the first round. By this point, the TV host had left CNN and was working for MSNBC.
His MSNBC show "Tucker" ran from 2005 to 2008.
Source: The Washington Post
At the age of 40, Carlson found himself unemployed after MSNBC canceled his show due to low ratings. This prompted him to help launch The Daily Caller — a conservative news website that has featured articles by far right-wing writers including VDare founder Peter Brimlow and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Carlson sold his ownership stake to cofounder Neil Patel in June 2020 and left the site, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In 2019, The Daily Caller fired managing editor Dave Brooks after a BuzzFeed investigation revealed his ties to prominent white supremacists.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, Media Matters
In 2009, Carlson joined Fox News as a contributor, appearing on shows like "Fox and Friends" and jumping in as a substitute host of "Hannity."
Source: Politico
In 2016, Fox News gave Carlson his own show "Tucker Carlson Tonight", which would eventually move into former host Bill O'Reilly's primetime slot and become massively popular.
Source: Insider
Over the years, Carlson has made headlines with controversial on-air comments about immigrants, women, and Black people. After a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, where the shooter left behind a manifesto about a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." Carlson said white supremacy was "not a real problem."
Source: Insider
In December 2018, Carlson sparked anger when he said that immigrants would make the country "poorer and dirtier." He never apologized and instead accused the backlash as being an attack on freedom of speech.
Source: Insider
Carlson has also made numerous comments about women. In one debate about President Donald Trump with Teen Vogue contributor Lauren Duca in 2016, Carlson told her to "stick to the thigh-high boots." Duca later said she received extensive online bullying as a result of the interview.
Source: Insider
Earlier this year, Carlson found himself in more controversy after a CNN investigation found that his top writer, Blake Neff, was posting racist and sexist comments online under a pseudonym.
Source: CNN
Carlson sparked fury in 2020 after he defended the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
"So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?" Carlson said, according to the Guardian.
Keith Boykins, a CNN commentator, tweeted in response: "An innocent black guy is killed by police and Tucker Carlson calls him a thug. A guilty white guy murders two people and Tucker Carlson calls him a patriot."
"He just justified murder," tweeted then-New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
The Fox News hosts contentious comments have prompted several companies to pull their advertisements from his show on numerous occasions.
In 2020, Carlson's comments about the Black Lives Matter movement lost him high-profile advertisers including Disney and Papa John's, according to Politico.
Source: Insider
Despite the controversies, Carlson was one of the most-watched people on TV, with his show regularly earning the title of the most-watch cable news program.
Source: Forbes
During the coronavirus outbreak, Carlson repeatedly attacked Anthony Fauci and questioned the efficacy of vaccines.
Carlson pushed vaccine skepticism onto his viewers.
"If the vaccine works as well as they claim it does, why are so many vaccinated people getting Covid?" he asked on air.
He also started a feud with Anthony Fauci, calling him "the guy who created Covid."
Sources: Insider, Independent
Ahead of the 2020 election, Carlson, a staunch defender of Trump, averaged 5.36 million viewers— the highest monthly average for any cable news show in history.
Source: Deadline
After the Capitol Riot of January 6, Carlson was accused of spreading misinformation about the rioters.
Carlson incorrectly said that that "not a single person in the crowd on January 6 was found to be carrying a firearm" and that there was "no proof" that white supremacists were involved in the attack.
Sources: PolitiFact, Mediaite
Carlson also spread lies about the results of the 2020 election, claiming stolen votes and fraud were responsible for Joe Biden's win.
"We don't know how many votes were stolen on Tuesday night," Carlson said said days after the election. "We don't know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don't know. We ought to find out."
Peddling these lies may have contributed to his downfall.
Text messages from Carlson that were disclosed as part of Dominion Voting System's lawsuit against Fox News revealed that he was skeptical about the voter-fraud allegations he routinely touted on television.
He also questioned Fox News' leadership.
"Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we've lost with our audience?" he wrote after the network called the election for Biden.
"Those f-----s are destroying our credibility," he wrote in another message. "A combination of incompetent liberals and top leadership with too much pride to back down is what's happening."
Source: The Washington Post
Carlson is also at the center of a discrimination suit Fox News is facing from a former producer.
Abby Grossman, who worked for "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and "Mornings with Maria," alleges that her career was thwarted due to misogyny and antisemitism in a suit she filed last month.
In the suit, she claims that Carlson's staff used a vulgar term to describe women and had pictures of Nancy Pelosi in a revealing swimsuit in their office.
She also claims that the network encouraged her to make false statements for a deposition in the lawsuit brought by Dominion.
Fox has disputed her claims.
Sources: Insider, The New York Times
What's next for Carlson?
Details are still emerging around the circumstances of Carlson's exit.
The New York Times reported that he found out on Monday — the same day as everyone else — that he would no longer be with the network, while the Los Angeles Times says he was pushed out by Rupert Murdoch himself.
Correction: A previous version of this post referred to The Daily Caller as a right-wing website that regularly publishes writing by white supremacists. It has been updated to reflect that it is a conservative website that has in the past published far right-wing writers, including Peter Brimlow and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Sources: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times
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